Unquestionably 2018's best game, and an all-time open-world masterpiece. [Christmas 2018, p.89]

So good that it almost seems deceitful: like a CG trailer of what the highest level of fun might look like. After 17 years, it's incredible that the series still has such power to astound and excite.

Rockstar's Xbox 360 swansong is probably the console's greatest technical achievement, and as such it's unmissable.

Amazingly written and beautifully constructed, it's a complete emotional rollercoaster which we can't drawn any parallels with...You'll be playing this game for months to come, exchanging story elements to build up the bigger picture, and arguing about what it all means. [Sept 2007, p.88]

With Half-life you've got a remarkable, near-perfect single-player experience, while Team Fortress 2 provides endless replay value and Portal provides a unique innovative sideways look at the physics of video games. And don't think it ends here, because Valve is a past master of the art of Downloadable Content. An essential purchase.

It's mature: not because of profanity or nudey bits, but because it tackles complicated themes without telling you what to think. Having already sunk a distressing number of hours into ME2, the second this sentence is finished we're firing it up and exploring the rest of the universe.

Skyrim may frustrate you at times, but it will work its way inside your skin and replace the marrow of your bones. It never gives you an opportunity to neatly stop playing. Even if you manage to tear yourself away, the locations and the people will rattle around in your head. It'll give you stories to tell your friends, (although you should remember that many people simply won't be interested), and it'll give you an entire region to bend, beautifully slowly, to your will.

Red Dead Redemption is a truly epic resuscitation of the Western theme in games. It's also easily the best gunslinging game we've ever played.

While it's worth replaying to catch the dialogue you missed the first time round - a spectacular rarity in any game - and to hunt out the hidden Rat Man rooms, there isn't enough variety in the way you solve puzzles to sustain repeat runthroughs. We're going to need DLC, and plenty of it, to keep our co-op partnership going.

Long-term fans might feel sad that Kojima doesn't go out in a hail of meta-bullets, but his restraint lets those magnificent ideas breathe, resulting in one of the finest stealth games ever made. [Oct 2015, p.89]

The game doesn't benefit from the novelty of Rocksteady's first, pitch-perfect effort, but based on the quality and beauty of Gotham's pair of correctional institutes, we're perfectly happy to be incarcerated again.

Gears of War is absolutely rammed with excitement, innovation and atmosphere. This is a next-generation game in every respect, trampling convention and really rewriting the shooter genre with flourish and pace.

Simply put, Oblivion is a game where the story never ends. The story of your exploits in any other game would have natural gaps, but here you can just keep telling it, with every yarn feeding logically into the next.

COD4 is cutting-edge entertainment, but the downside to this dense and gripping delivery is that it's over far too quickly: five to six hours on Normal difficulty...COD4 is short but immensely satisfying and we can't wait for a post-modern revival. [Dec 2007, p.73]

Bungie has delivered an excellent Campaign mode, arguably the best multi-player experience on any platform and almost endless replay value. But Halo 3 scores most highly for artistic vision, capitalising on all of the series' greatest visual motifs.

A hugely satisfying end to the best RPG in recent memory. Is it wrong we want even more? [Aug 2016, p.76]

This is a textbook example to other developers of the love, care, attention, polish and guile needed when crafting a sequel. An essential purchase for all FPS fans. [Ryan King]

Pac-Man made better. [Feb 2011, p.103]

The combat is gripping, taking a successful formula and bulking it out in ways that make it more demanding, tactical and entertaining...You're expecting a 'but', and we've got one. The only place where Infinite falls any distance short of brilliance is in its own audacious plot.

Unique, charming, frustrating, innovative. [Oct 2008, p.94]

The only major disappointment is final boss Seth. Given how imaginative the rest of the crew are, going toe-to-toe with a bald, blue baddie that bears more than a passing resemblance to Bioshock's Fontaine feels like something of an anticlimax.

It's simple what Bethesda's done here - it's taken Oblivion's engine and design ethos, and applied it to a fresh franchise. The results are truly impressive, and we've no hesitation in slapping on a Must Buy badge, but you can't help but notice that for every problem it's fixed from Oblivion, a new leak's sprung.

There are very few ways that Gears of War 2 could be improved on. Only the story and the final boss in particular are a slight disappointment. Fanboys will love the fact that only one of a multitude of story arcs is concluded; everyone else will feel slightly unfulfilled. But aside from this, Gears 2 is not just the most exhilarating game you'll play this year, but possibly the most heady and downright shocking piece of entertainment full stop. Hollywood, your days are numbered. [Dec 2008, p.61]

Mass Effect 3 is brave enough to threaten to destroy its very own legacy. Everything you've worked for is genuinely at risk, and horrifying things are going to happen because of some of the choices you've made. If you've spent as long as we have with these characters, the impact of this final journey will be one you don't forget for years. Brave, thrilling, and incredibly emotional, Mass Effect 3 is a sci-fi masterpiece.

It's aspirational, inspirational, educational, and eminently valuable. It's not only an achievement within its own genre, but a landmark for the entire medium as well.

Perfectly captures the essence of the original while offering something completely new.

We expected a brief, morbid adventure, but we never expected it to surpass Limbo. [Sept 2016, p.80]

This gorgeous, event-packed racer earns its place as a must-have for your Xbox. [Dec 2018, p.80]